Happy Thanksgiving: It’s Not Just Turkey at the Center of This Meal

Happy Thanksgiving! In honor of this great American holiday, many plates are loaded with delectable dishes, and drinks are filled to the brim with festive cocktails. Are chicken, duck and tofu on your table this holiday?

Thanksgiving Chicken

Well, Popeye’s is hoping chicken will be, or at least in your car. In a wild, buzz-generating campaign, this fried chicken chain is throwing a bizarre promotion: if consumers order from a standalone drive-thru kiosk in Fort Stockton, TX, they can pick up their orders, free of charge, at the Popeye’s location on Canal Street in New Orleans, LA.

The 12-hour drive is meant to emphasize Popeye’s special method of cooking chicken, which includes 12 hours of marinating. Along the drive, consumers pass billboards that mark just how long their chicken has been marinating. The free-standing drive-thru kiosk is available for consumers to order at as of November 9. Plus, die-hard Popeye’s fans can enter to win free chicken for a year at https://12hourdrivethru.popeyes.com/.

How many Popeye’s-eaters will make the 12-hour quest for a free meal? It’s hard to say. The only thing we know to be true is that this campaign is a great example of one of marketing’s golden rules: Go big or go home.

While the Canal Street Popeye’s location might not serve many customers from Texas, this marketing stunt is serving a bigger purpose of generating buzz, which is crucial to a bold campaign. It doesn’t matter how smart or on-brand your marketing initiative is unless people see or hear about it.

Thanksgiving Turkey, Duck and Chicken

Like Popeye’s, Turducken is known for going big. If you can’t recall or don’t know of the Turducken, the chicken-stuffed-in-a-duck-stuffed-in-a-turkey premiered as a Thanksgiving staple (for some) in the 1980s.

The turducken sparked plenty of buzz in its heyday and still does. Just recently the AP Stylebook tweeted about the mixed-meat meal.

Plus, the three-in-one has inspired plenty of followers, like Potbelly, who offers a turducken sandwich paired with a pumpkin pie milkshake for a full-Thanksgiving meal (that is surprisingly under 2,000 calories – in case you were wondering).

Other brands, like LifeHacker, have taken their own spin on the turducken for vegetarians with the GarSquashRoom.

Thanksgiving Tofu

And speaking of vegetarian options for Thanksgiving, Tofurky is hoping your holiday dinner will include their plant-based roast, free of animal products. Founded In 1980, Tofurky advocates for animal welfare and environmental initiatives by supplying delicious vegan and vegetarian meals.

Tofurky relies heavily on their social media accounts which invite consumers to win Tofurky in contests (like in the tweet featured here), join the brand for cause-walks and taste their vegan chocolate cheesecake.

Whether you have fried chicken, turducken or Tofurky in your oven and on your table this holiday, we hope it’s a great Thanksgiving.

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About the Author

Victoria Pallien is a Marketing Communications Writer at Digital Media Solutions (DMS), the fastest-growing independent digital performance marketing company. DMS helps its clients accelerate growth by deploying diversified and data-driven customer acquisition solutions that deliver scalable, sustainable and measurable marketing results. DMS performance marketing solutions connect the right consumers with the right offers at the right time to achieve the marketing objectives of our clients. DMS is continually innovating to provide new and emerging media and technology solutions that minimize waste and maximize results across the most competitive industries. Since its inception, DMS has demonstrated incredible year-over-year growth which has earned recognition on the Inc. 5000 list in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018.